Saint Joseph Catholic Church

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On December 18, the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Causes of Saints issued a series of decreed, moving fifteen candidates forward on the bath to beatification.

The decrees:

• certified a miracle attributed to the intercession of Enrico Ernesto Shaw, an Argentine layman who died in 1962;
• attested to the martyrdom of Ignacio Aláex Vaquero, a seminarian, and ten companions who died in Madrid in 1936 and 1937;
and
• proclaimed the “heroic virtues” of Joseph Panjikaran, an Indian priest; Berardo Atonna, an Italian Franciscan; and Sister Caterina dello Spirito Santo, an Italian Dominican religious.

Today is the Second of the O Antiphons, O Adonai (O Almighty God/O Lord and Ruler). As Moses approached the burning bush, so we approach the divine Savior in the form of a child in the crib, or in the form of the consecrated host, and falling down we adore Him. "Put off the shoes from thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground . . . I am who am."

The Christian leaders of Jerusalem have issued a petition to Israeli authorities, asking them to allow children in Gaza who are suffering from leukemia to be transferred to a hospital on the Mount of Olives for “specialized treatment that is only available to them there.”

The petition, made public by the Latin-rite Catholic Patriarchate of Jerusalem, notes that no effective treatment is available to the children in Gaza hospitals.

Confirming widespread reports, Pope Leo XIV has named Bishop Ronald Hicks of Joliet, Illinois, to succeed Cardinal Timothy Dolan as Archbishop of New York.

In a Vatican News interview, Bishop Hicks said: “All I want to do is God’s will, and however God moves me to be a leader in New York, I want to follow that and just give all of my mind, heart, and soul.”

New York’s Governor Kathy Hochul has announced that she will sign into law a bill making assisted suicide legal.

The Catholic bishops of New York quickly responded with a statement saying that assisted suicide is a “grave moral evil,” and “in direct conflict with Catholic teaching on the sacredness and dignity of all human life.”

Governor Hochul, a graduate of Catholic University, said that her choice to sign the legislation—making New York the 13th state to allow assisted suicide—was “an incredibly difficult decision.”

The New People’s Army (NPA), a Communist rebel group in the Philippines, has announced a two-day truce for Christmas, to be observed December 25 and 26, and followed by a similar truce on December 31 and January 1.

The NPA said this “unilateral ceasefire” wad intended as “a sign of solidarity with the Filipino people, who are trying to observe traditional holidays in a simple way amidst serious social and economic conditions.”

A government spokesman said that the truce announcement was “empty and unverifiable,” and revealed that the government had not negotiated with the NPA about the ceasefire.

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